So you went to USC and now your kid wants to go, you might be asking yourself, will your alumni status help get them in? If so, how much will it help? We work with legacy candidates all the time and navigating legacy admissions at top schools can be more complicated than you think. Especially, because a lot of what we know about legacy admissions on USC’s campus today comes from a recent state audit. This might sound odd, but it’s actually a really good thing. We comb through data and talk to insiders every year and legacy admissions data is one of the topics that universities tend to obscure as much as they can. Having a recent official record is kind of a godsend! So today we wanted to break down the ins and outs of legacy admissions at USC and answer some of our most asked questions.
Who is considered a legacy at USC?
USC has no mention of legacy status on its admissions website. However, after a California-based admissions scandal, the state audited many California colleges. During that audit, USC talks about legacies as children of alumni and lumps them in with another category of “donor-related applicants.” USC’s alumni network also sometimes calls children of alums, SCions so often legacies are referred to as such as well. While their admissions site doesn’t define SCion, they do still have a SCion-specific scholarship on the site.
How many legacies are on campus?
USC has released freshman student profiles for the past couple of years and has included legacy percentages in that profile.
These percentages seem to be decreasing steadily over the years. There are many reasons that this could be happening (such as fewer legacy applicants etc), but there is a huge chance that it’s because they want to be closer to other top schools’ percentages. 19% is a really high percentage of legacies on campus. Most top schools are closer to around 12% recently. You might be saying, however, “wait I don’t need to know how many are on campus, how many get in?” Schools tend to protect this information pretty closely,
We don’t know the current acceptance rate for legacies, but we can find it for the Class of 2019. This data is a little old to use, but we can use it to guestimate. For the Class of 2019, SCions only made up 10% of applicants but accounted for around 22% of campus. At the time, the overall acceptance rate was 18%, while the acceptance rate for legacies was probably somewhere in the late 20s or even 30s (take this with a grain of salt, we had to estimate some numbers). These numbers make sense with what the alumni network said at the time, ‘While USC has no SCion admission quota, “we see the status as being important,’ [Dean of Admissions Timothy] Brunold says. They tend to be accepted to USC at a higher rate than the overall acceptance rate for applicants.”
We don’t think the legacy acceptance rate is as high as it used to be given the number of legacies on campus has plummeted since then. However, if the number of SCions who have applied has remained fairly constant, which often it does, that means we can use that trend to estimate what it might be today. The overall acceptance rate and percentage of legacy students per year have both dropped since then. For the Class of 2025, the overall acceptance rate was 12%. If around 10% of applicants were SCions and they were admitted at 12%, the Class should have been around 8% SCion, but it was 13% for the Class of 2025. This points to a slightly higher acceptance rate for legacies than the general population. However, since the overall rate is so low, the legacy admission rate would still be under 20%.
Ok, what does that mean?
We know we just threw a lot of numbers at you. You have to forgive us, we are kind of nerds when it comes to admissions data. But the important thing to note is that even when the numbers were higher than they are now, still the majority of legacies who applied didn’t get in. Getting in at a slightly higher rate is helpful, but USC is still highly competitive. Your student doesn’t just have to be competitive against the general population, but against other legacies.
There is a common misconception that legacies are less qualified than other applicants, but usually, that isn’t true. Legacies often come from wealthier backgrounds and families that value education at top schools. This means many legacies have been working from a young age to be competitive candidates. We work with legacies all the time and they usually come to us with solid grades, resumes, and a lot of knowledge about the school.
How do I make sure my kid is competitive as possible?
There are two ways to get noticed as a legacy, have a great application or be from a family who donates. USC uses a system of “special tags” when it comes to specialty admission. Admissions officers can use these tags for a wide variety of reasons not just legacy status. They say they use these tags when "someone at USC knows the applicant or has reason to believe the applicant will make a positive contribution to the university community. In some instances, a special interest tag may be issued because a student’s family has a longstanding relationship with, has donated to, or has the capacity to donate to the university."
It feels skeezy, and maybe it is. One side note, even if an applicant comes from a donor family, they do need to be qualified enough to plausibly, get in… USC doesn’t want to get audited again. We understand most families aren’t huge donors or parents of sports stars etc. And while that might help get a special tag, it’s not the only way to stand out. USC uses a “holistic analysis.” This means their admissions office considers grades, the rigor of their high school, test scores, extracurriculars, personal background, essays, and “a consideration of contribution to the diversity of the campus community." Legacies have to have good scores and grades, but what makes a stand-out application has to do with writing, extracurriculars, and packing their background in a way the admissions office will notice. We can help with that.
This process isn’t easy. There are a lot of tips, tricks, and trends that you need to know to craft a great application. It’s what we do every day and we always suggest working with a counselor for students who are serious about admission to a top school. We work with our students to make applications that can’t be ignored and walk them through every step of the process.
Legacy admissions can be a hard topic to talk about. Many schools do not want to give a lot of data about how they approach legacy admissions given the controversy sometimes surrounding them. We hope we could answer some of your questions when it comes to the ins and out of USC SCion admission. If you have more questions or need help, however, we are always happy to chat!
Reach out here.